Minnesota Vikings: 5 Reasons Vikings Will Make Playoffs in 2012

The 2011 season for the Minnesota Vikings and rookie quarterback Christian Ponder has been filled with growing pains and lessons learned.

It’s also been filled with growth and promise of much better things to come.

Not all rookie QBs rush out of the gate and lead their teams to the playoffs like Ben Roethlisberger or Mark Sanchez have done. Most who get thrown in find that they have much to learn and that the road is long.

Luckily for the Vikings, they have critical pieces already in place on both sides of the ball. What they need now is to fill the gaping holes and they will be primed for the playoffs in 2012.

Here are my five reasons why Ponder and the Vikes make the playoffs next season.

Secondary Improvement

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Maybe the most glaring weakness on this team is the secondary. They’re currently tied for the 26th-ranked pass defense, but rank dead last in passing touchdowns allowed—they gave up two touchdowns to Tim Tebow.

Chris Cook has yet to return to the team after he was accused of violently assaulting his girlfriend. Antoine Winfield hasn’t played a full game since Week 4 due to recurring injuries, and he’s 34 years old now so keeping up with young, speedy receivers is getting harder to do.

Cedric Griffin just isn’t the same now with two reconstructed knees and Jamarca Sanford just doesn’t look like he knows what he’s doing out there.

Cornerback Marcus Sherels shows some promise, but he’s just a rookie, as is free safety Mistral Raymond.

The coaching staff needs to take a hard look at moving Winfield to safety and then going out and getting a couple quality veteran corners to solidify that secondary.

Doing that will go a long way in this team getting back in the playoff hunt.

Better Coaching

Most coaches are given a three- or four-year window period to install their system and get the players they want in order to run their operation effectively.

Leslie Frazier is 5-12 in his young coaching career and a rough-going 2-9 this season.

That alone should not warrant his departure yet, but the way he looks overwhelmed at times on the sidelines should raise an eyebrow.

He never shows any emotion on the sideline which is fine, but you also never see him laying into his team when it’s needed and it looks as if he doesn’t have complete control of his players.

It’s because of this that coach Frazier may be on a much shorter leash than people realize and if he doesn’t clean up some of the on-field miscues such as better utilizing the challenge flag, he could be gone before even seeing this team make the playoffs.